#this is aunsatisfying at least for me but
the title describes precise how I feel about this fic anyway enjoy ty for reading <3 hope you’re having a good sunny spring (or autumn) day
“Sirius, why has Fabian sent me a letter to apologise to you?” Remus poked him in the stomach with his toes.
“Hmm?” Sirius groggily lifted his head from Remus’ chest, trying to blink the sleep away. “Fabian… oh! Er—”
“He said he’s sorry for, and I quote, ‘inappropriate advances’ towards you, ‘due to some misunderstandings that had inadvertently arisen, I hope this will not come between our friendship—’” Remus read quickly, “Sirius, what happened?”
“Hm.” Sirius slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows, “that’s funny.”
“I for one have not seen Fabian this awkward about anything.”
“All that sounding formal too.”
“What did you do?”
“I umm.” rip the bandage off, “I kissed him. Or really, he kissed me.”
“Oh, so you’re branching out.” Remus drew up his knees and looked at Sirius lopsidedly, “but then why’s Fabian apologising? Unless you aren’t branching out, but you’ve not been dating for a while either, so is that why you— did you think you might be— oh, Sirius. Come here.”
“Huh?” Sirius said a little dumbly, but let Remus take him in his arms.
“Who would have known all that was going on in your head, huh?”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
Remus laughed, Sirius scowled.
“Really, though, whatever worked or didn’t work— it’s alright. You know that, don’t you?”
Sirius bit his lips and grunted. “It wasn’t supposed to not work, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“This isn’t normal, is it?”
“What’s normal then? Having sex with boys?”
“Yes, obviously! Fabian’s fine!”
“But Fabian doesn’t want to have sex with girls.”
“Well yeah.”
“So it’s fine to not want to have sex with girls, and it’s ‘obviously’ fine not wanting to have sex with boys, it’s also apparently perfectly fine to want both— then why can’t you just not want either?”
“Yeah but. You have to want something, don’t you? It’s part of being human or whatever.”
“Pads, hate to break it to you,” Remus deadpanned, “but you’re actually talking to a werewolf.”
“That’s not what I—”
“And you happen to be a dog. Not really a ‘human’ are you?”
“I’m clearly more than just a human. So are you. That’s what Nietzsche meant by ubermensch right?”
Remus looked as though he seriously thought about the suggestion, “Sure. Something like that. And the ubermensch cares not about what’s normal, which are clearly all a farce.”
“It’s too early in the morning for this.”
“For what?” Remus said innocently? “Cuddling? You can get out now if you want. Or— is it too abnormal for a manly male friendship?”
“Shut up.” Sirius whined, snuggling even closer to Remus.
“Hiya lads!” James burst in through their door, “ooh have I come in on cuddling hour?” he said, and launched himself at them.
“Gerrof Prongs! You’re all sweaty and gross!”
“I’m joining too.” Peter poked his head out from the toilet, toothbrush still in his mouth. He ambled over and curled into Remus’ other side, butting off James to sprawl across the foot of the bed.
-
“Wait a second.” the thought occurred to Sirius halfway thought the day, “Remus, how did you know Fabian’s gay?”
“Oh well,” Remus said breezily, “he told me he had a crush on me once.”
—
The Marauders had a motto— they did whatever they liked, long as no one got hurt. (well, no one who wasn’t a git).
Then came the night when Sirius first failed his promise of never leaving Moony alone on a full moon. And—
“When we said we could do whatever we liked long as no one got hurt,” Remus said coldly, not looking at him, “this wasn’t what I meant.”
It was the morning after, when Sirius tried to visit feeling like he had a rotting pit for a heart. And sure, of course, whatever he did or wanted to do was precisely who he was. But it was clearly far from fine, or normal, or good.
—
He talked to the boys about it at the start of sixth year. Everything in their dorm, the window panes, the bed curtains, hung exactly where they’d always been. Yet everything felt so strange. Remus was standing in the corner, listening carefully, but the air between them was still stilted.
“I get it, I think.” Peter said, “I might be the same. Is it like, you don’t really care what the other person is? Boy, girl, whatever?”
“Got it in one, Pete.”
“Yeah. I think I’m like that too.”
“Oh. Thanks for telling us.”
“But then,” Peter continued, “you don’t really want to kiss them or have sex with them.”
“That too.”
“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t really get.”
“It’s just,” Sirius scratched his head, “I don’t look at a person and think, I want to have sex with them. Ever. Or even kissing, but that’s— fine, I guess. Could do without it, though.”
He glanced over to find Remus looking straight into his eyes, gaze sharp yet unreadable. At what must have been Sirius’ worried look, Remus pressed his lips together in what could have been a tight smile. Sirius felt acknowledged and reassured nonetheless.
—
Having been paired with Lily Evans for Charms, with James looking on in resigned despair, must have been the funniest thing to have happened to him— in some universe where it didn’t happen because Remus probably had asked to not be with him.
“I swear, Black, if you’re going to spend this whole time advertising James Potter to me I will make your life miserable.”
“Yeh. I know you could. But do you want to hear about the time he laughed so hard at something you said soup came out of his nose?”
But it turned out that it was just James who Lily was a threat to.
-
“You have a
“You have a crush on Remus.”
“What?”
“You do. You’re staring at him all the time.”
Sirius couldn’t quite talk about why he was looking at Remus rather than being with him; or about how every new day he still felt like guilt was being kneaded into him like dough. “Am I, not allowed to look at my friend?”
“You don’t stare at Peter like that, do you. Not even James.”
“Yeah well, what’s there to stare at?”
Lily laughed. “Sure.”
“It’s not like— I want to kiss him or anything.” Sirius said lamely.
“Oh come on. You think that’s the only symptom of having a crush? And it’s not like you have to want to kiss them to have a crush on them.”
“Nope Evans. You’re making no sense.” Sirius decided, “what does it even mean to have a crush, huh? Can you tell me that?”
Lily rolled her eyes “can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
-
It was quite unlucky the way Lily planted the idea in his head. It was quite unlucky the way he was noticing how much he noticed Remus. Remus, who sang Joni Mitchell in the shower and talked in his sleep. Who liked David Bowie way too much and gave the best cuddles. Who Sirius would clearly do anything for,
And he wondered.
-
The answer came on an unremarkable afternoon in the common room. Remus was playing chess with Peter, and when Sirius approached them, Remus looked up towards him, and unhesitatingly smiled. It was open and careless, a smile Sirius hadn’t seen directed at him for months. Then Sirius suddenly knew that they were okay. So much more than okay.
Remus, however, quickly went back to scowling at the game between him and Peter. He was so clearly losing.
Instead of directing his next play with his voice, Remus took out his wand, and started poking at his tragically few remaining pieces.
“Remus, hey, what are you doing?” Peter immediately tried to grab at Remus’ wand, almost upsetting the board.
Remus showed no sign of relenting. Peter grabbed the board to take it away, a suddenly movement that badly startled some of the chess pieces. They started pointing their tiny arrows and canons towards Peter, firing at him.
“Ow! Alright.” Peter put his hand up. Remus smirked.
He stabbed at his remaining pawns until they looked like queens— with crooked crowns and third-handed gowns. But they apparently didn’t mind
“Queen to D4, queen to E5, queen to F4.” Remus said triumphantly, tapping at each of the transfigured pawns, “Oh hell yeh. Checkmate, Pete!”
Peter groaned. “I hate you!”
“I didn’t know you could be so blatant with cheating.” Sirius said breezily
“Sorry buddy,” Remus said, grinning, not sounding sorry at all. As Peter’s king has been felled, he waved a finite over the board, then stood to give his seat up. “Go on then, Pads.”
And he sat serenely with a book, watching Sirius getting absolutely destroyed by a still-fuming Peter three games in a row. And Sirius could hardly pay enough attention to mind, because he’d just gotten Moony back, who was smiling and grinning and smirking at him, and all was alright in the world.
—
It was a sunny weekend afternoon. The common room, albeit bright and warm and cosier than ever, was abandoned as expected. Except.
Sirius caught Remus sitting at the piano, stumbling through the chords of Starman, while singing along under his breath. Sirius grinned widely, creeped over, lightly pushing Remus till he budged over, and plopped himself down right by him.
“Want me to teach you?” He doesn’t wait for an affirmative, “Like this, see—” he wound an arm around Remus to place his own hands over Remus’.
He shuffled their hands to correct Remus’ awkward finger positions, one chord at a time through the whole song, then back to the start and again. It was slow and awkward, punctuated by intermittent laughs, huffs of frustration, Sirius playfully slapping Remus’ wrist when he got it wrong, again.
“You are literally breathing down my neck.”
“This isn’t fair. You could be so good at this, your hands are so big. You barely need to spread your fingers for the octave.”
“What’s that got to do with the timing? My brain is literally trying to split apart—”
After another suppressed grunt that escaped as a squeak, Remus laughed softly and shuffled away from Sirius.
“Alright you, go on.” At Sirius’ raised eyebrow, he added, “You’re clearly itching to play yourself.”
“Well, alright.”
Sirius dramatically cleared his throat, wiggled his fingers in the air. Slowly, he lowered his hands to the keys, and then he was off. The familiar chords filled the room, ringing more crisp and delicate than the twangy guitar of the original song. His fingers raced up and down the keys, at times leaning close into Remus to reach the keys. Remus leaned back into him. As the chorus came up, he turned his head to look at Remus, grinning madly as he belted about starmen and children losing it. Remus had the crinkle by his eyes, head nodding in beat as he softly hummed along. His eyes flitted between Sirius’ eyes and the way his fingers flitted over keys, adding flourish between lines of lyrics almost by instinct.
Finishing on a glorious glissando, Sirius let out a long happy sigh. He took a moment to ponder almost in amazement at the way his hands were poised on the piano. This was the most fun he’d had playing the instrument perhaps ever.
Sirius turned his head, and it was to catch Remus with a small smile again.
“What?” Sirius said, his own grin softening.
“Show-off.” Remus said fondly, shoving at him.
Sirius laughed brightly, “Hey, here, let me teach you a couple more—”
That’s how Lily found them, huddled close over the piano. Low laughs between them underscoring melodies that edged between rock and classical.
Remus was the first to see her, a curtain of sunlight away, standing near the common room entrance. “Lily! Come here!” he called her over.
Sirius wondered how long she’d been standing there watching them.
-
“Sooo are you in a relationship?”
“Who?”
She gave him an unimpressed look.
“Alright, alright.” Sirius laughed, “But no, obviously not. Remus doesn’t even want a relationship.”
“How dare you decide what he wants or not?”
“No, I’m Serious,” he said— Lily glared at him, daring him to make the joke, so he had to let it pass— “Moony doesn’t care about girls— or boys. Moony cares about books.”
Lily rolled her eyes, “well he could change, couldn’t he?”
Sirius rose to retort, but snapped his mouth shut at Lily’s single raised finger.
“And this isn’t really about Remus. I’m asking you, Sirius. Would you want to stand and watch Remus in a relationship with someone else?”
The thought left a funny feeling in his stomach, though decidedly unpleasant.
“… No.”
“I thought as much. So you want to be in a relationship with him.”
“I mean— not really, not like that.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, like James wants with you?”
“God. You just had to bring him up.”
“As is my duty.”
Lily sighed. “But think about it, won’t you? About what you feel about or want with Remus. You’ve got to at some point.”
-
It all came out in a rush, when the two of them were alone under their tree by the lake.
“I am in love with you, I think.” Sirius said into the sun.
Remus lifted an eyebrow. “You think?”
“I— think. Yeah.”
“But what does that mean? That you’re in love with me? Rather than plain old loving?”
“I don’t know. Just, more. Possibly.”
“How exactly?” Remus asked in a murmur.
“I… don’t know.”
This wasn’t how Sirius thought it was going to go at all.
“You love me, Moony, don’t you?”
“‘Course I do.”
“But in the same way you’d love James and Pete.”
“Obviously not,” Remus closed his eyes against the sun, “you’re not James and Pete.”
“But I mean like—”
“I know what you—”
“— As a friend. You love me as a friend.”
Remus opened his eyes, turned to look at him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows.
“Well, what’s the difference between your closest best friend and your boyfriend or girlfriend?”
“Pft. Boyfriends and girlfriends are so much sillier.”
“What about, say, soulmates?”
Sirius didn’t answer for a very long time.
“There’s no difference, is there?”
Then Sirisu saw. It’s what Remus has been trying to show him. Remus has been trying to show him for years. Every act of trust and loyalty and forgiveness and tenderness, though Sirius didn’t realise, they had been talking with their souls.
And Sirius saw in Remus what Padfoot, as a dog, had known since he laid eyes on Moony the very first time.
The realisation hits him with the weight of the entirety of the blue sky. Bright light and white clouds stood as witness.
The sun was on his neck, the wind was in his face. And Sirius felt so high like he was sailing.
“Moony?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you are my soulmate.”
The shock of a smile that emerged on Moony’s face— so careful and tender and subtly making his entire face glow up from his crinkled eye to his lifted cheeks. It made Sirius want to bottle it and hold it forever. It made Sirius feel so proud to have been its cause.
“I think you are too.” Remus replied.
-
fin.
